No kidding. And it wasn't just the consoles, but peripherals as well. Xbox controllers vanished within a month from everywhere, and original MS ones are now almost impossible to get in a decent nick. There are 3rd party controllers, but they are much much worse.

Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday November 21, 2008 @10:05PM
from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.

NCSoft announced today that it will be closing down Tabula Rasa on February 28th. The sci-fi shooter-flavored MMO struggled for quite some time, despite recent attempts to draw in new players by announcements of new features, price reductions, and using Richard Garriott's trip into space as a promotion. We discussed Garriott's departure from NCSoft a couple weeks ago. This is NCSoft's second failed MMO, and apparently layoffs are in the works. They seem to be making an effort to make the game's last few months as fun as they can for their remaining players, though. "Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009. We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while."

Gamers - yes, unfortunately the directional sound (and EAX) support of onboard audio is still not up to the same level as Creative's. This is especially relevant if you play FPS games with either a 4+ channel speaker set or headphones. The X-Fi's headphone processing combined with a quality pair of headphones wipes the table with any of the so-called "surround" cans.

Hi-Fi enthusiasts - most definitely. Onboard audio is getting better, but not quite there yet. Most often the rare onboard audio codecs that are of high quality are only found on very expensive mainboards. It's often much more practical to get a cheaper mobo and a proper separate audio card.

Other potential applications include HTPCs. Take a look at Asus' new Xonar HDAV 1.3, for example.

However, you're right in that the market has shrunk considerably. Onboard audio is good enough for most people these days, and Creative's sound card business is in trouble. For me, an M-Audio Delta with a Creative X-Fi (one of the real ones, not the XtremeAudio fakes) is good enough. But I'm picky compared to most when it comes to audio.

Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Monday April 21, 2008 @04:26PM
from the hot-hardware dept.

jcasman writes "CNet is covering an announcement from Japanese Linux provider Plat'Home on a low-cost, super tough Linux-based server, now available in the US, that can handle extreme heat and cold. 'The OpenMicroServer is kind of an "extreme" use server pushing the boundaries for normal, low-cost hardware. In a 624-day endurance test, the OpenMicroServer performed normally under 122 degree F conditions. The unit also employs a power efficient AMD Alchemy (MIPS) CPU and precise part placement based on thermo-fluid analysis to achieve semi-hermetic construction.'"

Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Wednesday February 06, 2008 @08:45AM
from the i-sure-have-my-opinions dept.

Following the so called Super Tuesday primary mega bash yesterday, McCain has solidified a strong lead in the primary race over his rival Republicans. Things aren't so clear for the Democrats: while Clinton leads, the race is still too close to call.

Posted
by
Zonk
on Wednesday January 16, 2008 @12:54PM
from the still-quite-dodgy dept.

Dr. Eggman writes "Ars Technica has posted a lengthy follow up analysis of the 2008 New Hampshire Primaries outcome. The article deals with the O'Dell machine/hand-count table that has been circulating through emails. It also points out the combination of factors that resulted in such an odd symmetry of numbers, although the article notes that these numbers have been corrected. The corrections still indicate a discrepancy among the tallies. The article also goes on to talk about the nature of the communities that arrived at these numbers and what/how the handcounts proceeds. This process has been inconclusive; something that does not bode well for the rest of the primaries and indeed the election itself, as only 16 states currently mandate both a voter-verified paper trail (VVPT) and a random manual audit of election results."

Posted
by
Zonk
on Tuesday August 28, 2007 @12:21PM
from the or-not-whichever dept.

The New York Times has an article up this week talking about Nokia's third attempt to get their N-Gage brand into the minds of gamers. This time it's a service, not a device, and the company is betting that branding mobile games will be a better tactic than their previousattempts. "The Ideo and Nokia executives concluded that users mainly want to play against their friends and, at the very least, they want to know the skill level of their opponents. As a result, the new N-Gage permits users to see what games their friends have on their phones and whether they are online. They can also see how many points a person has earned in the game, as well as how much time they devote to solitary play versus group play. The researchers also asked players what their greatest frustrations were. High on the list was buying a game that turned out to be disappointing. In the new N-Gage service, customers will be able to sample games free before buying them. The selection will lean toward the casual side of gaming, with soccer and fishing titles and the popular puzzle game Bejeweled, among others. Nokia has not yet discussed prices."

Posted
by
Zonk
on Saturday August 11, 2007 @04:41AM
from the shouldn't-have-blinked dept.

ela_gervaise writes "SIGGRAPH 2007 was the stage where Microsoft dropped the bomb, informing gamers that the currently available DirectX 10 hardware will not support the upcoming DirectX 10.1 in Vista SP1. In essence, all current DX10 hardware is now obsolete. But don't get too upset just yet: 'Gamers shouldn't fret too much - 10.1 adds virtually nothing that they will care about and, more to the point, adds almost nothing that developers are likely to care about. The spec revision basically makes a number of things that are optional in DX10 compulsory under the new standard - such as 32-bit floating point filtering, as opposed to the 16-bit current. 4xAA is a compulsory standard to support in 10.1, whereas graphics vendors can pick and choose their anti-aliasing support currently. We suspect that the spec is likely to be ill-received. Not only does it require brand new hardware, immediately creating a minuscule sub-set of DX10 owners, but it also requires Vista SP1, and also requires developer implementation.'"

Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wednesday July 25, 2007 @12:06PM
from the like-a-glimpse-into-the-future dept.

Academiphiliac writes to mention the BBC reported in an article this morning that the Malaysian government may start using tough anti-terror laws to censor bloggers who insult either Islam or the country's king. "The move comes as one of Malaysia's leading online commentators has been questioned by police following a complaint by the main governing party. The new rules would allow a suspect to be detained indefinitely, without being charged or put on trial. But officials insist the law is not intended to strangle internet freedom."

Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Sunday October 29, 2006 @09:14AM
from the if-it-ain't-broke-fix-it dept.

Rockgod quotes a Mercury News article saying "If a recent patent filing is any indication, Apple Computer may abandon the iconic wheel that has become virtually synonymous with its popular iPod music players.
The company had previously explored replacing the click wheel with a virtual one as part of a touch-sensitive display. But now Apple appears to be looking at a third option: a touch-sensitive frame surrounding the display. Rather than click a physical button or press a virtual one on the screen, users would touch an area on the frame to operate their iPod."

Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Wednesday October 18, 2006 @07:28AM
from the why-can't-people-just-get-along dept.

brown-eyed slug writes "The BBC is reporting what is claimed to be Britain's first "web-rage" attack. A man drove seventy miles to assault his victim with a pick-axe handle after they exchanged insults in a Yahoo! chat room." From the article: "Det Cons Christopher Creagh, of the Metropolitan Police, said: 'This is the first instance of a web-rage attack.' Det Sgt Jean-Marc Bazzoni, of Essex Police, added the case demonstrates the importance of protecting one's identity on the internet. 'Mr Jones had posted pictures of his family on the web and had chatted to Gibbons on an audio link,' he said. 'It demonstrates how easily other users can put two and two together and also shows how children could also find themselves in danger.'"

Posted
by
CowboyNeal
on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @06:26AM
from the back-for-more dept.

replicant108 writes "Ciaran O'Riordan of the FSFE gives a concise analysis of why the EU Software Patent Wars will resume this winter. Apparently the pro-patent side have changed their strategy — this time they plan to bypass the legislative powers and target the judiciary instead. The goal is to transfer power from the national courts (which often rule against software patents) to a specially-created European Patent Court which will be controlled by the pro-software patent EPO!"

Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Monday April 24, 2006 @03:25AM
from the things-that-make-you-go-hmmm dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Representative Lamar Smith is sponsoring the Intellectual Property Protection Act. The new bill is designed to give the Justice Department 'tools to combat IP crime' which which are used to 'quite frankly, fund terrorism activities,' according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Among the provisions is lowering the standards for 'willful copyright violation' and increasing the corresponding prison term to 10 years."More information is also available at publicknowledge.org.